It is often difficult for the person who isn't kinky to fully understand what SM is. Most, if not nearly all, the books written about SM are written by kinky people, primarily for kinky people. These books often act more like an instruction manual for someone wanting to engage in SM play or relationships, than a place where anyone can go to get basic information.
Unfortunately, there is very little written material aimed at those who do not want to engage in SM play, written in such a way that they can fully understand it.
Basic Principles of SM
One common misperception people tend to have about SM is that it is based on concepts completely foreign to them. They may have a mental image of a dominant top flogging (or whipping) a submissive bottom, and think to themselves that they could never engage in anything like that. They think the basic principle behind such a scene has to be so foreign to them that chances are they'll never understand it.
But, the truth is, the basic principle is based on something that effects everybody – whether they are conscious of it or not. Let me site some examples.
Let's say you have a loose tooth. It hurts to touch it, but for some reason, it's hard for your tongue not to wiggle it, play with it, even though you know it is going to be painful.
Another example (maybe a little more common) would be someone with an itch. You start to itch, and one of your first instincts would be to scratch the itch. Somehow, scratching the itch makes it feel better. So, you scratch your itch, and then the discomfort will go away.
But, a few minutes later, the itch will most likely come back. So, you scratch again, and the discomfort temporarily goes away again. After a few hours of this, you look where you've had your itch and you may noticed you've scratched that area raw.
What's happening is this. When you get your itch, it hurts. You have to do something about it, because you don't like being in pain like that – so you scratch. When you scratch, you irritate the painful area making the pain worse. Your body releases a chemical called endorphins, which make you temporarily feel better. Endorphins are your body's natural response to pain. Unfortunately, because you irritated yourself worse than you had been before, you start to feel the pain or itch again, which makes you scratch again – and the process starts all over again.
This is one of the most basic principles of SM play. The top (sadist) will cause painful sensations in the bottom (masochist) which causes the bottom to release endorphins, taking them to pleasure through pain.
While it may appear, at least to an outsider, that a top is mercilessly inflicting pain or torture onto the bottom, this notion is completely false. A good top will have enough experience to fully understand the impact his (or her) actions will have on their partners. A good top will not push the bottom beyond what they can tolerate, mentally or physically.
Another example along these lines comes from the world of bodybuilding. What bodybuilders do when they exercise is damage their muscles in a controlled way so that the muscles will repair themselves and be bigger and stronger. Pain is a byproduct of this process – just in the same way that pain is a byproduct of SM play.
Fantasy
Another basic principle of SM play is Fantasy, and this is something that is a fairly common element in most, if not all, relationships of any kind. You may have a fantasy of making love with your partner on a sandy beach, or maybe you have a fantasy about having sex with a particular coworker after the office closes, or maybe you have a fantasy involving joining the so called "Mile High Club." Or, maybe your fantasy is that your partner leave the lights on this time or not fall asleep the minute he's finished.
The truth is, fantasy – whether it is recognized or not – is a common element in all relationships. If I asked you to close your eyes for a brief moment and think about the perfect relationship or the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend, you would probably have no difficulty in creating a picture in your mind of what the perfect spouse would be. Or, maybe you would come up with a list of characteristics that person would, or would not, have. This can easily be described as one of your fantasies.
Our fantasies are most often a product of our unconscious mind. If we were to take a look at the images we thought about when imagining the perfect spouse, we may be able to discover something about them. Maybe the images related in some way to a relationship we saw other people in, be it good friends, our parents or other family members, or maybe our role models. (My good friend John Doe has a perfect marriage and I want mine to be just like his.) Or, maybe those fantasy images come from things we did or did not like about our past relationships. (I dated someone once who was very manipulative, so my dream date is not going to be manipulative.) Or, maybe those ideas came from our response to our environment, or other psychological factors in our own lives. (I work from nine to five every day and all I do is make decisions, so I would like a spouse who can make some or most of the decisions at home.)
These fantasies are not all that different from fantasies within SM relationships. In fact, maybe they are exactly the same. One of my early SM mentors was a fellow who was completely submissive whenever I saw him at home or saw him around town with his Dominant partner. His career though was another story all together, as a CEO, he ran a very successful marketing business. He explained to me that his home life and his at work life were two extreme opposites and the more dominant he was at work on any given day, the more submissive he became at home. It was his way of keeping a balance in his life.
Psychotherapists and marriage counselors have often used fantasies as a way of making relationships stronger and better. It is fairly common for individuals who have been in a relationship for some period of time to seek out professional help on how to kick-start or spice up their marriage (or relationship). The use of fantasy or fantasy play will often arise during these discussions. As fantasies are an expression of our unconscious thoughts or desires, expressing these fantasies in a healthy environment can help two people to express their feelings toward each other in a positive way.
Fetishes
Another common element of SM play are fetishes. Simply put, a fetish is normally a non-sexual object or concept (or symbol) that gives an individual some sense of sexual arousal. Some common fetish objects may include leather, latex, rubber, plastic, or PVC clothing, or uniforms. Others may include underwear, shoes or boots, cigars, or just about anything. According to mental health experts, this is a purely natural and normal thing.
Fetish play is very similar to fantasy play, and are often combined during a single experience or scene. Different fetishes tend to have certain scene guidelines that are common, but in no way mandatory.
For example, with many uniform fetishes, the individual in uniform will act, during the scene, as if they are accepting that role. If one wears a police uniform, they will act like a police officer as part of the fantasy.
There are a few general Dress Code Rules that many leathermen will adhere to. (This dress code is often strictly enforced during SM parties, or leather bars.) Parts of this dress code normally includes things like not wearing white tennis or gym shoes, not wearing cologne or other scents, the wearing of various colors (such as hankies) to advertise what you are looking to do or have done. Of course, there is also the obvious being that you must be wearing some form of leather, latex, or uniform.
Mental Health and SM
An interest in SM was once considered a mental illness. Over time, as more has become known about SM, and as more people have become interested in it, this is no longer the case.
A look at the DSM-IV(TR) – the psychological Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Volume 4, Text Revision or what psychologists and psychiatrists use to classify mental illnesses – will reveal that entries for Sadism and Masochism still exist. In other words, Sadism and Masochism can still be considered a mental illness. However, what makes an interest in SM a pathology (or mental illness) is if disrupts normal day-to-day behavior, and/or if there is no element of consent, or if such activity is involuntary.
In other words, SM between a Sadist and a Masochist is not a mental illness. A sadist who enjoys raping or torturing people who do not enjoy such behavior would be considered mentally ill. A person who feels compelled to engage in SM acts on an involuntary basis would also. An example of this latest would be one who agrees to SM behavior because they feel they have to or should, although they do not like said behavior.
Control Issues is another key phrase when it comes to mental health. Often, issues such as Domination (being in total control) or submission (having little control) are things to be worked out during psychotherapy. However, within the SM lifestyle, they are generally accepted. As above, this falls into the same category where if it is accepted by those involved it should be considered acceptable, however if these issues cause a disturbance in the daily lives of those involved, then there are issues needing to be worked through.
One of the common misconceptions having to do with SM play involves this transference of power, aka Domination and submission. To the outsider, it seems as if the Dominant party has complete control over the submissive. Even the simplest definition of domination or submission implies this. To one extent, it is true. The Dominant party will have complete control over what happens during a scene. In a sense, the Dominant's control is merely situational. The submissive party, will have their own sense of control, in that they control what sort of activities are acceptable or not. They may allow bondage to be a part of the scene along with painful or erotic stimulation of certain forms but not of others. It is said that the Dominant controls how the game is played, but the submissive is the one who sets the rules.
Other General Misperceptions
When people come across images of SM in movies, television, books, or while talking with friends or strangers, it is common to get misperceptions. It is easy to do with SM because chances are nobody is getting a complete picture presented to them in a manner they can relate with. It's human nature.
Let's say I am thinking of something. Now, during the course of this activity, you have two people, most always of the same gender, who come together and try to beat each other up, often by throwing punches, hitting their opponent in the belly, chest, or face. In fact, the goal of this activity is for one of the participants to render the other unconscious.
Now, I realize most people will think I am talking about some perverted gay SM play, but I am not. It is not perverted, gay related, nor is it anything directly related to SM.
What if I said this activity was mostly accepted by mainstream society. You might think I am nuts for saying it, but it is. What if I said this activity has made some celebrities household names only because they did this activity? What if I said that some people do it in high school, in front of other students, teachers, parents, and for the most part, there's no problem with it? It's true. Confused yet? Given up? Ok. One last one. What if I said this was, in fact, an Olympic Sport? Yep.
Ok. That last one might have given it away too easy. The activity I am referring to is … Boxing. The point to this is to demonstrate how just looking at something isn't always going to give you a full picture of what's happening, and that sometimes we can completely misperceive what we think we're seeing. Because of the very nature of SM and the society we all live in, this is common. So, what are some of these misperceptions or misconceptions?
One of the easiest misconceptions to make is that SM is abuse. Now, I will not lie to you, abuse happens in every kind of relationship setting, and SM is no difference. The difference between SM and abuse can be explained in one word – consent. If one person beats another without their consent, it's abuse. If someone beats up another person with their consent, it's not abuse. (Just like, let's say, Boxing?)
Another misconception people tend to have (and I will admit that I was once one of them) was that leather folk are scary people. (Ok, maybe some of them are.) This is something we see a lot of in the movies. Someone walks into a leather bar or a biker bar, and almost invariably there's a drunken bar fight, someone always gets thrown out the main window, but there is always some kind of conflict. I saw those images in movies and was scared whenever I had to pass a leather person walking down the street, or I would cross the street to keep from walking down the sidewalk in front of such a place. Words like "biker gang" or "Hell's Angels" scared the crap out of me, and there was always the impression that anyone who drove a bike or wore leather chaps or jackets was part of something along these lines.
I've come to realize over the years that this was a rather gross misconception on my own part. Shortly after my first introduction to SM, I had the extreme pleasure of riding with a number of these scary biker types. We met at a certain bar and once we were all there, our goal was to collect toys from various businesses (and numerous people along the way) so that these could be given as gifts to needy children for Christmas. I'm referring to my first (and unfortunately only) Toys For Tots run.
It was this single event that shattered my mental image of the leather type. We had several hundred bikers that year driving through the streets of Denver in the blasting cold, picking up toys for kids. You have to have a huge heart to do something like that … nothing like the image of being thrown through a plate-glass window because you looked at someone in the wrong way in a biker bar.
I was nearly terrified the first time I had gone into a gay leather bar, although nothing scary ever happened there. Over time, I've come to feel more accepted at leather bars than I do in any other bar. One of the main reasons for this is because leathermen, in general, have such a wide variety of interests, goals, favorite activities, fetishes, etc., that no two people are going to be the same. They know what it feels like to be the "weird one", the outsider rejected from mainstream life because they look or act different, so they will accept nearly anybody for what they are. (Ok, not all leathermen are like this, but a great deal are. You shouldn't let one or two examples ruin your perception of an entire group.)
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This document was not intended, in any way, to be a complete disclosure on everything related to SM, but hopefully should serve as an introduction presented in a way that someone who does not wish to engage in SM play or behavior should understand.
SM is not for everybody, and just because activities can be said as being normal, natural, or healthy, does not mean that everyone should engage in them. Race car driving (like, NASCAR) can be said to be a normal healthy thing for some, but not everybody should get behind the wheel of a racecar and drive that fast around the track. However, if you enjoy such things, there should be nothing wrong with doing them.
© 2002; Corky McGraw
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